These topics aren't exactly, shall we say, John Nash's natural strong suits (well, at least as far as he's presented in the film—we're not commenting on the real guy). John proves himself consistently and painfully awkward around the ladies.
As he says to his friend Charles, it's partially because he's such an intellectual guy: He's just all around more comfortable with numbers and ideas than people. And if you've started dating, you know that dealing with love and attraction is kind of the master class in dealing with people.
Luckily, John meets a girl named Alicia who is totally into his quirky ways, and he figures out how to integrate his whole life of the (beautiful) mind with love and all the other good stuff that comes with it.
Questions about Love/Sex
- Is this a drama…or a love story? Or both?
- Related question: do you find the love story aspect of the movie distracting or totally central to everything else?
- How could a smart guy like John think that coming on to a woman with talk about "fluid exchange" was a good idea?
Chew on This
The love story is necessary to keep this story about math from being deadly boring.
Forget overcoming illness or having extraordinary genius—this is totally the story of a dude narrowing that whole divide between heart and head that we all struggle with.